"Yes," acquiesced Mrs. Jakes, helplessly, and departed.
Ford came lounging across the room to Margaret.
"What's up?" he inquired. "You haven't been murdering somebody and not letting me help?"
Margaret shook her head. She was standing guard over her composure and could not afford to jest.
"Sit down over there," she bade him, motioning him towards the couch at the other side of the wide room. "And don't go away, even if he asks you to. Then you 'll hear all about it."
He wondered but obeyed slowly, leaning back against the end of the couch with one long leg lying up on the cushions.
"If he talks in the tone of his message to you," he said meditatively, "I shall be for punching his head."
Sub-Inspector Van Zyl had had the use of a clothes-brush before expressing his desire to see Margaret; it was a tribute he paid to his high official mission. He had cleared himself and his accoutrement of dust and the stain of his journey; and it was with the enhanced impressiveness of spick-and-span cleanliness that he presented himself in the drawing-room, pausing in the doorway with his spurred heels together to lift his hand in a precise and machine-like salute. At his back, Mrs. Jakes' unpretentious black made a relief for his rigid correctitude of attire and pose, and the pallid agitation of her countenance, peering in fearful curiosity to one side of him, heightened his military stolidity. His stone-blue eyes rested on Ford's recumbence with a shadow of surprise.
"Afternoon, Ford," he said curtly. "You 'll excuse me, but I 've a word or two to say to Miss Harding."
"Afternoon, Van Zyl," replied Ford, not moving. "Miss Harding asked me to stay, so don't mind me."